Santa Rosa Symphony to open season with twin pianists

Bruno Ferrandis, music director of the Santa Rosa Symphony, sees many different themes woven into the tapestry of the orchestra’s 2015-’16 season, including exoticism and dance, universality and peace, nature and religion.

There will also be plenty of pianists in the spotlight, during the first and last concert sets in October and May and the second concert set in November. But there’s another theme that trumps those minor themes with its major power.

“This is a season of composers at their height,” Ferrandis said, citing the 9th symphonies of Beethoven and Bruckner, Dvorak’s 8th, and Saint-Saens’ third and last symphony. “This is the essence of the essence of these composers.”

The new season, which opens this weekend, will be the symphony’s fourth as the resident orchestra of the Green Music Center’s Weill Hall and Ferrandis’ 10th anniversary season as music director. Both conductor and orchestra are settling nicely into the new acoustical environment of the hall. Last season, they presented an array of energetic. well-executed programs with high-profile soloists that were well attended.

According to Executive Director Alan Silow, there was a record number of single tickets sold both to the Classical Concert Series and the Symphony Pops Series, presented in collaboration with the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts.

“That (single ticket sales) was related to the quality of the programming and the artists,” Silow said. “And for the Saturday afternoon dress rehearsals, the ticket sales have been through the roof.”

As a result, the orchestra has been able to expand this year with three new permanent players - a first violin, second violin and a bass player - bringing its ranks up to a total of 81 musicians. A vacancy for oboe/English horn was also filled.

Here is the essence of each concert set of the symphony’s Classical Concert Series. Each concert will be performed at 8 p.m. Saturdays and Mondays, and 3 p.m. Sundays, at Weill Hall. Pre-concert lectures with Ferrandis start one hour before curtain time.

1) “Twin Stars” on Oct. 10-12: The season kicks off with a world premiere of “Pax Universalis” by Arab-American composer Mohammed Fairouz, one of the most sought-after young composers working in America today. “It’s a 10-minute piece, very colorful, with joy and a pulse,” Ferrandis said. Fairouz, who is currently writing an opera, will attend both the Saturday and Sunday concerts on Oct. 10 and 11.

Twin sisters Christina and Michelle Naughton will perform two double-piano concertos: Mozart’s Concerto No. 10 for Two Pianos, written by Mozart in 1782 to play with his older sister; and Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos, a neo-classical work that both revives tradition and revamps it.

Capping the concert will be Saint-Saens’ Symphony No. 3, an unusual work scored for both organ and four-handed piano. The prolific composer considered it his best work. “I love the spirituality of the slow movement, and the feeling of peace and calm,” Ferrandis said. “This symphony just breathes peace.”

2) “Surround Sound” on Nov. 7-9: Pedja Muzijevic, a Serbian-Bosnian pianist who studied at Juilliard. will tackle two piano works, which are linked together: Schumann’s popular Piano Concerto in A minor; and “Quasi una Fantasia” by Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, which is named after Schumann’s famous “Fantasie” for piano. “The Kurtag is very sensitive, with a lot of eerie sounds,” Ferrandis said. During the work, orchestral musicians will be placed around the hall, boosting the work’s unusual acoustics.

As a finale, Ferrandis will bring back Brahms’ Symphony No. 1, which was written around the time that the composer met Schumann. The work has been referred to as “Beethoven’s 10th.”

3) “Joy to the World” on Dec. 5-7: Peace and universality will reign during the symphony’s annual holiday choral concert, when Ferrandis will once again lead a performance of Beethoven’s beloved Symphony No. 9 with the Santa Rosa Symphony Honor Choir. (The first time he led it here was in 2009.) To open the concert, he chose Luciano Berio’s “Folk Songs,” which includes vocal songs sun in many different languages. The 20-minute piece is the third, and most famous, work that Ferrandis has performed here by the Italian composer.

4) “Pastoral Pleasures” on Jan. 9 to 11: Guest conductor Mei-Ann Chen, who conducts the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, will lead a global program that pairs “Saibei Dance,” a work by Chinese-America composer Huang Ruo about a harvest celebration, with Dvorak’s folksy Symphony No. 8. Rounding out the program will be Tchaikovsky’s fiery Violin Concerto, performed by Caroline Goulding. a young, award-winning violinist on her way up.

5) “Strokes of Genius” Feb. 20-22: Ferrandis returns to the podium to lead the symphony in two challenging war-horse works. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, performed by violinist Rachel Barton Pine, is “an entire symphony for violin and orchestra,” Ferrandis said. The concert closes with the original three movements of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9, Unfinished. “Bruckner is dying, and he knows it,” Ferrandis said. “At the end of the Adagio he wrote, ‘Farewell to life.’”

6) “Rhythmic Vitality” April 2-4: Dance rhythms punctuate a concert that brings back charismatic cellist Zuill Bailey for a performance of Britten’s Symphony for Cello & Orchestra, written in 1963 and recently recorded by Bailey. The concert opens with a world premiere of Daniel Brewbaker’s “Dances and Dreams of Dionysus,” and closes with the full concert version of de Falla’s ballet, “The Three-Cornered Hat,” based on Andalusian folk songs.

7) “Jazzy Impression” on May 7-9: Dance and jazz rhythms also energize the season finale featuring Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Martinez performing Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, another work written by a composer at the top of his game. Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from his musical “On the Town” open the show, and two Spanish works by French composers provide an exotic ending: Debussy’s “Ibéria” (“Images for Orchestra”) and Ravel’s “Rapsodie espagnole.” “You feel Debussy’s really in the street,” Ferrandis said. “It’s a Spanish feast in the night, and there are lot of colors and rhythms.”

Extra concerts

1) A gala fund-raiser, featuring a private piano recital by Christina and Michelle Naughton, will be held at 6 p.m. Friday at the Green Music Center. The tribute to long-time symphony supporter Henry Trione begins with a reception and concludes with a gourmet dinner in Prelude Restaurant. Tickets are $300.

2) As part of the Sonoma Paradiso Family Concert Series conducted by Richard Loheyde, the Santa Rosa Symphony will perform three children’s concerts in Weill Hall this season, starting at 3 p.m. Oct. 18 with “Music from Out of this World.” For tickets and more information, go to santarosasymphony.com or call 546-8742.

3) The Symphony will perform four concerts at the Wells Fargo Center as part of its Symphony Pops Series, starting Oct. 25 with guest vocalist Dee Daniels performing standards from the “Great Ladies of Swing.” For tickets and more information, go to wellsfargocenter.com or call 546-3600.

Staff writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56.

Double your pleasure

What: The Santa Rosa Symphony under Music Director Bruno Ferrandis opens its 88th season with twin pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10; 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 11; and 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 11, Discovery Open Rehearsal os at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10.

Where: Weill Hall, Green Music Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park

Tickets: $20 - $80 for concerts; $10 youth under 18, $15 adults, for the open rehearsal.

Reserve: 546-8742 or santarosasymphony.com